REVIEW article
Front. Ecol. Evol.
Sec. Conservation and Restoration Ecology
This article is part of the Research TopicThe North American Bison Management System: Sustainability, One Health, Ecological Restoration, and Ecological ResilienceView all 5 articles
Review: Mycoplasma bovis in North American bison (Bison bison): history, advances, and challenges
Provisionally accepted
- 1Biological Resources Division, National Park Service, Fort Collins, United States
- 2USDA Agricultural Research Service, Ames, United States
- 3Turner Institute of Ecoagriculture, Bozeman, United States
- 4US Fish & Wildlife Service, Washington, United States
- 5USDA-APHIS-WS National Wildlife Research Center, Fort Collins, United States
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North American bison (Bison bison) are keystone herbivores that shaped the ecology and evolution of North American prairies and peoples alike. Bison populations were pushed to near-extinction at the turn of the 20th century. Today, bison remain highly susceptible to newly introduced pathogens to which they have not evolved immunity, and Mycoplasma bovis is a significant threat to bison health. Although M. bovis is frequently associated with multifactorial bovine respiratory disease complex in its reservoir host, domestic cattle, M. bovis is a devastating primary pathogen in bison. As a fastidious, insidious, and rapidly mutating organism that lacks a cell wall, M. bovis is difficult to diagnose in an infected animal, and the lack of bison-specific knowledge and diagnostic tools further limits options for herd managers. Here we present a review of the current state of the field of M. bovis in bison, identify gaps in our understanding of bison physiology and M. bovis ecology, and we highlight the unique evolutionary differences of bison from domestic livestock. Dedicated bison research is urgently needed to improve prevention, surveillance, response, and management of M. bovis in this iconic North American wildlife species.
Keywords: bison (Bison bison), Disease, Mycoplasma bovis, conservation, Epidemiology
Received: 20 Aug 2025; Accepted: 17 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Buttke, Kaplan, Bragg, Jones and Malmberg. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Danielle E Buttke, danielle_buttke@nps.gov
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